André Mariën graduated in 1979 from K.U. Leuven as a civil engineer in computer science.¿He obtained a PhD in computer science in 1993. Recently, he added a master’s degree in enterprise architecture. He has combined a full-time career in industry with a part-time career in academics for the last 30 years.

His industrial experience includes medical informatics, compilers, artificial intelligence, networks, Internet applications, and security. The latter has been his primary focus for the last 15 years. He has consulted across Europe, the US, and the Far East, and has spoken on a wide variety of topics related to security in the US and Europe. He has been a teaching assistant for courses on operating systems and high-level and machine-level programming languages, and for the past 10 years has taught a course on Internet infrastructure security for master’s students at K.U. Leuven.

He is fascinated by security, as it allows one to integrate knowledge from very different disciplines and specializations.¿Risk management benefits from business and managerial thinking. Vulnerability research, biometric authentication, cryptography, and forensics are technically challenging. Security in development is technically, organizationally, and economically driven. Security architecture requires knowledge of many domains and requires a jack-of-all-trades to effectively communicate with all stakeholders.

He enjoys being a reviewer for Computing Reviews, as it provides a perfect excuse to spend time on the latest research, and to explain to others in the field which papers and books one should read.